Psychology and Violence in Plato’s Phaedrus, Republic and Timaeus

Abstract

In the Phaedrus, Plato describes the control of the epithumia by the reason as being extremely violent. The epithumia-black horse is brutalized and it becomes obedient by this brutality. The aim of this paper is to prove that this violence is not an image, but a psychological reality. Plato defends this point of view in the Timaeus, where he describes the psychophysiological process which occurs when the logos attacks the epithumia. But the Timaeus also shows that the thumos plays an important role in the realization of the rational violence.